Escargot for marriage equality

[WillParkinson]

SCIENTISTS NAME NEW SNAIL SPECIES IN HONOR OF MARRIAGE EQUALITY AND GAY RIGHTS


Scientists in Taiwan have named a new species of land snail in honor of the fight for same-sex marriage rights, according to a report in the journal Zookeys.

The snail species , thought to be part of a species discovered in 1884, turns out to be genetically independent, Chih-Wei Huang and his collaborators at Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University discovered:

"When we examined the phylogeny from each gene," Huang says, "it suggested that the eastern A. subchinensis was more closely related to A. vermis, a similar land snail species inhabited in Ishigaki Island, than the western A. subchinensis."

They confirmed that what was thought to be A. subchinensis from eastern Taiwan was in fact a new species, which they named as A. diversifamilia. The name means the diverse forms of human families.

http://www.towleroad.com/2014/10/scientists-name-new-snail-species-in-honor-of-marriage-equality-and-gay-rights.html

[burrowowl]

1. Many snail species are hermaphrodites

They breed with each other by testing which one is in their female or male phase and then go to it for 24 hours and plop over with their antennae hang in out for a bit.